Ocean (Damage Control Book 5) (5 page)

***

He keeps his hold on my hand as he leads me out of the bar, and despite my confusion, I can’t deny it feels good. His palm is hard, his fingers callused, his skin so warm. He’s shrugged on his jacket, and as we step outside and the cold night air hits my face, I wish we were back on the dance floor.

With my arms around his neck.

With the heat from his body seeping into mine.

God, what was in that beer I drank earlier? I teeter on the sidewalk, and he shoots me an undecipherable glance over his broad shoulder, then, seeming satisfied I’m not about to faceplant, keeps going, his strong fingers wrapped around my hand.

Steering me down the street, past car after car until I think we’re going to walk back to my apartment or something.

Then he stops in front of a beat-up Chevy truck parked at the curb and produces a jingling set of keys from his jeans pocket.

Oh.
Driving it is, then.

I squint at his truck. Despite patched up parts where the paint is a different hue, a dent in one of the doors and an even bigger one in the back bumper, it’s clean and waxed, buffed to a shine. It gleams in the light of the street lamps.

A guy car. Big and tall and robust. The car of a guy who doesn’t have much money, I suppose. Who doesn’t own much and looks after what he has.

Another piece to the puzzle that is Ocean. A puzzle I’ve been trying not to think about for some time and which hit me square in the chest—or in the back, rather—today.

Impossible to ignore him now. Not when his six-foot-two frame looms over me and his scent keeps teasing my senses. When those intense eyes are looking at me.

“Hop in,” he says and sneaks an arm around me to open the door. “Need help?”

Oh, yes, please.
“I’m okay.” Tearing my gaze off his lickworthy face, I climb into the car with minimum damage—knocking my forehead against the car frame doesn’t count, okay?—and settle in the creaky seat.

As Ocean closes the door and walks around the truck, I stretch my legs out and inhale the musty-smoky scent of the interior, a hint of plastic seats and a light smell of earth and dead flowers.

Uh, wait a sec…
Am I imagining the smell?

Twisting in my seat, I find a couple of dead flowers littering the back. Lilies, I think. Okay, then.

But why is he carrying dead flowers in his truck? I open my mouth to ask as he climbs inside and settles behind the wheel, but he beats me to it.

“Are you all right?” he asks as he starts the engine and pulls off the curb, strong hands tight on the wheel.

Aw, he cares. How cute. Of course I’m fine, how can I not be, sitting beside a hottie like him, in his truck—

A wave of nausea grips me, turning everything inside me to acid. Choking on it, I lean my head back and close my eyes.

Please don’t let me throw up in his truck. Please dear God, don’t let me upchuck all the shots and beer I drank in his clean, musty truck with the smell of dead flowers, with his cool blue eyes on me, his warmth beside me.

The urge to throw up subsides, and sleep teases at the edges of my consciousness. As I slip under, I feel a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth.

Hey, I got to feel his muscular arms and chest from up close. And I didn’t throw up. At least there’s that, right? A girl’s gotta cherish small victories.

I guess the night wasn’t a complete loss after all.

***

There is a low, deep voice in my ear, a rumble against my side. I’m swaying to a gentle rhythm, warmth all around me. I curl up more, cuddling to it, not wanting it to go. A steady beat echoes that of my heart.

Take me home.

I murmur the words as I slide through space and time, my path strewn with Tarot cards, all facing down.

The way isn’t clear. The past is murky behind me, but I make out faces—my sister and brother, my parents, my uncles and aunts. They look annoyed and disappointed in me for not listening to them, for setting out to do my own thing.

Fashion design? Seriously, Kayla? And then what will you do for a living? And what will people say?

Why can’t you be quietly conservative and loudly disapproving of anything new and different like the rest of your family, your neighborhood, your little lost town in the middle of nowhere?

What are you looking for?

I wish I knew the answer. Leaving home I never had a precise destination, a firm goal. Being happy, and free, and allowed to search for ways to be that was all I wanted.

And now, drifting in this warmth, in the scent of metal and pepper and the feel of a heartbeat under my own, it feels as if I’ve reached a goal, found a place where I can be.

I don’t want this dream to end.

A door slams, the sound jolting me wide awake. Blinking my eyes open, I look around. For a second nothing makes sense, and fear squeezes my chest. I’m curled up, still, but the world around me is moving—walls sliding by, shadows slipping past.

“Kay,” a voice rumbles against my ear. “I need your key to open the door.”

I jerk, and the warm surface I’m cuddled against shifts. I crane my neck to look up.

Ocean’s face, staring down at me. Something flashes through those blue eyes. Annoyance? Amusement? Damn, I normally can read faces like they’re open books.

Whoa.
I’m in Ocean’s arms. His muscular, strong arms, and he’s carrying me to my apartment.

“Key,” he repeats, hefting me in his arms, and I repeat this in my head until it sinks in.

We are, in fact, standing in front of my apartment door.

Door.

Key.

I wiggle in his hold, and bending his knees, he lets me glide down to the floor. He keeps his hands on me, though, as I fight to regain my balance, his fingers tight on my hips, under my coat, and heat seeps through the thin fabric of my skirt.

He’s so tall. I’m not that short, but he makes me feel tiny.

I don’t dislike the feeling. At
all
.

“The key,” he says again, one side of his generous mouth kicking up in a half-smile, and that’s not helping with my concentration—or lack thereof.

“Right. Key.” I dig into the pockets of my coat.

Can’t find it.

“Here.” He unslings my purse from his shoulder—my very pink-and-orange purse that was hanging from his very broad, muscular shoulder—and hands it to me.

I take it without a word and rummage inside blindly until I happen upon my keys. Looks like I’m still staring at him because he pries the keys from my hand and turns to open the door.

“Why…?”

He swings the door inward and glances at me, making an impatient sound. When I don’t move, he wraps his hand around my arm and tugs. “Come.”

I try again. “Why are you here?”

Without giving me a reply, he pulls me inside.

Inside. My apartment. I repeat, Ocean Storm is inside my messy apartment.

If I wasn’t so woozy, I’d be calling the television station. Breaking News. HOT STUD SIGHTED IN KAYLA EVERETT’S APARTMENT.

Oh God, stop it, brain. Just stop.

“Are you okay?” he asks and then proceeds to catch me when I stumble over the threshold. He walks me backward.

“Well, this is a bit like it.”

“Like what, Kay?”

“Like dancing.”

He turns his face away and produces a strange squeaky noise.

“Are you all right?” I ask, kinda worried, because his shoulders are shaking and—

“You’re so drunk.” He’s laughing, I realize. He shakes his head as he turns me around. He walks me forward this time, toward my sofa. “I’m never letting Jesse talk me into doing this again.”

“Wait.” I dig my heels into the carpet. “Wait a second.” I lick my lips, gather my thoughts. “You’re doing this because Jesse asked you to?”

“You don’t remember?” His grin falls. “He said
you
asked for
me
.”

I twist away from his hold, and he lets me. We face each other, words hanging in the air between us like those bubbles in comics.

“I asked for you?”

“Didn’t you?” His brows draw together, the blue in his eyes going stormy. “Fuck, I’m gonna kill that motherfucker. I knew he was screwing with me.”

My drunken thoughts are a jumble. He drove me home because Jesse pulled a prank on him?

Funny how my heart drops to my feet.

Crap.
Cocooned in layers deep of alcohol, with no barrier between my conscious and my unconscious, I wanted him to say he brought me home because he thinks I’m pretty, and special, and because he has a thing for me.

God, he’s right, I’m so drunk. I only wanted to touch him, feel that rock-hard body under his clothes, maybe have some fun with him for one night.

But he doesn’t want me. And I knew it.

“I’m going to bed,” I announce, not wanting to admit even to myself how disappointed I am. How stupid I feel.

“Let me help you,” he says. “You’re not steady on your feet.”

“I’m fine, I’m—”

“Let me,” he says again, his voice smooth and hot, and I nod.

He wraps an arm around me and guides me to my bedroom. Walking by the armchair piled high with clothes, turning on the bedside lamp, he pushes me to sit on the mattress and kneels at my feet to take off my shoes.

I look down at his blue hair, at those wide shoulders stretching his jacket, and my heart trips.
God.
Cut against the golden light of my lamp, he’s so beautiful. I’m dying to thread my fingers through his hair, kiss his mouth. Watch lust haze his bright eyes, feel it against my body as he becomes aroused and hard.

But I can’t. Falling in his arms at the bar was one thing. Taking a good look at him from up close is another. He’s the perfect sunny boy of Damage Control, the heartthrob every girl wants. With that soft mouth, those cheekbones, that hard jaw dusted in light stubble, he’s way too gorgeous even for a joke and a laugh with me.

He’s not for you, Kay. You can’t have him. He’s got everything he needs already, while you’re still searching.

Dammit.
Living in a drunken fantasy was
so
much better.

***

“I am so proud of you, Kayla-bug,” my mom says, my father beaming at me over her shoulder. “I can’t tell you how pleased and relieved we are that you have returned to your senses and came back to us. That you have followed your sister’s steps and found a good asshole to marry and have kids with, someone who will stomp all over you, cheat on you and make you cry day in and day out. I am sure you feel a weight lifted off your chest, too.”

Oh God, this isn’t real. This is a dream. A frigging nightmare.

And I promptly wake up, gasping.

At first, I’m not sure I have. My mind is still tangled up in threads of dream, and my mom’s voice is echoing in my ears.

So proud. So happy. So relieved.

Man, what a screwed-up dream. Note to self: do not mix Appletinis and beer again. Ever. My head is pounding, and I blink, trying to focus on what I’m seeing, trying to understand it.

It doesn’t look right. For many reasons.

One of them being the room seems to have tilted sideways.

That’s when I realize I’m lying on my bed, curled on my side, the covers pulled up to my chin. The bedside lamp is on, and faint dawn light is creeping through the slats of my window. My shoes are haphazardly thrown on the carpet, my earrings are lying in a heap on the bedside table…

And there’s a guy in the armchair, arms folded over a broad chest, head tilted forward. Asleep.

Lifting my head off my pillow in alarm, I open my mouth, then close it again as memory smacks me on the forehead.

Ocean. At the bar. In the car. Taking me home. Putting me in bed.

Propped on my elbow, caught in a spell, I watch him sleep on my armchair. His hair is falling in his eyes, his lips are parted, his chest rises and falls with deep, even breaths. He’s still dressed in his jacket and heavy-duty combat boots.

He’s so cute like this. Not grinning, or frowning, or making funny faces to get his friends to laugh—though a crease between his dark brows tells me he must be uncomfortable as hell. I bet he’ll have a crick in his neck like nobody’s business.

Or he’s having a bad dream, like I did. Yeah, bad dream, I think as he jerks and mutters something under his breath. Probably worse than mine. Mine was just weird.

His head falls back, and my gaze is caught by the expanse of his long, pale throat, the vulnerable angle of his face, which is now turned toward me, blue hair brushing his brow.

Another jolt goes through him, and he sits upright, hands flung in front of him, as if to stop something, or someone.

“Not true,” he says, his voice shockingly loud after the quiet. His breathing is coming in gasps. “She’s not dead.”

Then he bows his head and covers his face with his hands.

That breaks through my mini-trance. He’s breaking my heart like that. Never seen him so utterly shattered.

“Ocean?” I sit up, too, throwing my legs off the bed. “Hey. It was just a dream.”

“But it’s not.” His voice is splintered like old wood. He pushes off the chair to his feet, turns away from me. “It’s not.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, and worry twists my already unsettled stomach.

He leaves the room before I find something to say.

Ocean

Tearing the jacket off me, my skin crawling all over, I open a random door and find myself in her bathroom. I close the door and lean against it, trying to catch my breath.

Fucking dreams. Fucking memories.

Pulling my sweater sleeve up, I rub compulsively at the ink on my forearm. Figures I’d sleep like shit and wander back in time for the worst day of my life.

Your fault
, I hear my brother’s voice inside my head.
It’s your goddamn fault.

Jesus
fuck
. I push off the door and stumble to the sink. A twist of the knob and I splash my face with ice-cold water, over my hot cheeks and burning eyes. I rub at them, to erase the images branded on the inside of my lids.

I’m sorry, Livvy. So fucking sorry.

Perfect time I’ve chosen to come apart.

On cue, there’s a timid knock on the bathroom door. “Ocean? Can I come in?”